Quean
noun ·Uncommon ·Advanced level
Definitions
- 1 A woman, now especially an impudent or disreputable woman; a prostitute. archaic
"Rahab, that harlot, began to be a professed quean at ten years of age […]"
- 2 A young woman, a girl; a daughter. Scotland
"Forbye the two queans there was the son, John Gordon, as coarse a devil as you’d meet, he’d already had two–three queans in trouble and him but barely eighteen years old."
Example
More examples"Rahab, that harlot, began to be a professed quean at ten years of age […]"
Etymology
From Middle English quene (“young, robust woman”), from Old English cwene (“woman, female serf”), from Proto-West Germanic *kwenā, from Proto-Germanic *kwenǭ (“woman”), from Proto-Indo-European *gʷḗn (“woman”). Doublet of gyne and queen. Cognate with Dutch kween (“a barren woman, a barren cow”), Low German quene (“barren cow, heifer”), German Kone (“wife”), Swedish kvinna (“woman”), Icelandic kona (“woman”), Gothic 𐌵𐌹𐌽𐍉 (qinō, “woman”), 𐌵𐌴𐌽𐍃 (qēns, “wife”).
Related phrases
More for "quean"
Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.